Kurtz Gives Fox & Friends A Pass On Their Ray Rice Non-Apology

Today, on MediaBuzz, USA Today’s Christine Brennan righteously called out Fox & Friends’ offensive banter about Ray Rice’s knockout punch to his then-fiancée in an elevator. Host Howard Kurtz agreed that was a “misstep” (though he never brought it up himself), then quickly said he was glad that the hosts later said “We didn’t mean to give the impression that we take this lightly.” The problem? They never said that.

Ironically, much of the discussion focused on Kurtz’s suggestion that the media was guilty of not taking Rice’s violence seriously enough. He asked, “Should there have been more of a media uproar then?” when the first video of Rice dragging his wife out of the elevator surfaced.

A bit later, Kurtz asked Brennan, “Do you feel that some in the media are treating it as entertainment?”

“Certainly, yes,” Brennan answered. Then, acknowledging how clicks and ratings reign supreme now, she added, “I’ll have to say it, we’re here at Fox. But Fox & Friends, the other day, the banter about, ‘Well, this proves he should take the stairs...’”

Kurtz quickly interrupted. “That was an unfortunate misstep,” he said. But obviously not unfortunate enough that Kurtz felt the need to bring it up, himself, on Fox’s media criticism show. Even though it created a firestorm of criticism on social media.

Kurtz continued, “And I was glad that they came back the next day and said, ‘We didn’t mean to give the impression that we take this lightly.’”

Except that’s not what was said the next day. No remorse whatsoever was expressed for anything said about the Rice video. In fact, Fox & Friends’ Brian Kilmeade – who made the “take the stairs” jibe – suggested it was the viewers’ fault for misinterpreting. In his very brief remarks the next day, Kilmeade said,“Meanwhile, comments that we made during this story yesterday made some feel like we were taking the situation too lightly. We are not. We were not. Domestic abuse is a very serious issue to us, I can assure you.”

I’m guessing that Brennan never saw that non-apology. Still, she didn’t let Fox or Kilmeade off the hook. She said, “Yeah, but boy they did. You could say, ‘the next day.’ But how do those words come out of your mouth after you’ve seen those videos, both videos?”